Jimmy Savile: Newsnight producer is nephew of abuse school headmistress

The producer of the shelved Newsnight investigation into Sir Jimmy Savile has
angrily denied that he concealed an interview that corroborated sex abuse
allegations against the DJ in order to protect a relative.

Jimmy SavilePhoto: PA

1:26PM BST 21 Oct 2012

BBC journalist Meirion Jones is the nephew of Margaret Jones, who was headmistress of a school where Savile is said to have preyed on young girls.

Rochelle Shepherd, a former pupil at Duncroft approved school, said on camera that Savile fondled fellow pupils and has reportedly also asserted that Mrs Jones must have known about his behaviour.

Meirion Jones (BBC)

Sources cited in a newspaper said Mr Jones did not tell Peter Rippon, the editor of Newsnight, on time about the content of this interview, which corroborated evidence the programme had received from another former pupil, Karin Ward.

They told the Sunday Times that it might have given Mr Rippon more confidence to continue the investigation rather than dropping it in December 2011.

The sources questioned why the producer and his team did not use the fact that he had recorded the interview to argue for more time.

Senior management were only said to have become aware of the second interview when part of it was broadcast by Newsnight last week – but without a section that referred to Mr Jones’s aunt.

Mr Jones, who is now working on the Panorama investigation into the abuse and the BBC’s handling of the planned expose, told another newspaper that the allegation relating to his aunt was designed to discredit him and the new programme.

In a statement to the Mail on Sunday, he said: “Allegations I concealed an interview to protect my aunt are ludicrous.

“The tape was in the [editing process] ready to go into the Newsnight film last December. I made it available in full to Panorama and Newsnight.

“If my purpose was to protect my aunt, I would never have tried to uncover the scandal in the first place.”

Sources close to Mr Jones said he had never made any secret of his family connection with the school and that he had “fought tooth and nail” to get the programme on air.

On October 11, Newsnight broadcast some of Ms Shepherd’s interview, in which she said that Savile would grope girls at Duncroft Approved School for Girls in Staines, Middlesex, while pretending to be their “saviour”.

Yesterday she told the Sunday Times that she thought she had criticised Mrs Jones in the interview, recorded last year.

“[Jones] was the one who used to invite him. They used to spend a lot of time together, so I cannot imagine that she didn’t know about it,” she said.

However she admitted that she could not prove what the headmistress knew.

Ms Shepherd told the Mail on Sunday that Mr Jones made clear from the start that he was the nephew of the headmistress but that she did not get the impression he wanted to protect her.

The newspaper said Mrs Jones could not be reached for comment.

A BBC spokesman said: “The BBC has launched an independent review led by former head of Sky News, Nick Pollard, which will cover these questions. It would not be appropriate to comment further until this has been concluded.”